


investigative abandonment.

by sp201120122013



Series: Dangerverse [1]
Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Album)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-04
Updated: 2013-09-04
Packaged: 2017-12-25 15:24:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/954711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sp201120122013/pseuds/sp201120122013
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>origin story for kobra kid and party poison.<br/>details the events leading up to them deciding to abandon battery city.</p><p>(originally posted 2012)</p>
            </blockquote>





	investigative abandonment.

            The night wouldn’t have been so bad if it weren’t for a multitude of other factors that had been introduced to it. It would’ve been a regular night of worrying about other people breaking the law and thinking unsavory thoughts—thoughts of rebellion, thoughts of escape. Those thoughts were more local than expected, at least for one perky masked assassin running through the streets. For one, there was proof in this man’s pocket of his brother's involvement in the movement against the city. The man running home was named Nathan Collins, Nate for short. But he was only Nate at home, only Nate when his past and present felon of a brother, most likely future convict of a brother addressed him. He was on the way home to hopefully prevent the “future” part from taking place.

            The City was perfect, and the rebellion was scum--misguided, run off of their medication, and dangerous as anything else past the city limits. Nate wasn’t sure if his younger brother had been properly medicated recently. He hadn’t been home to check on Davey, make sure that he had been obediently swallowing down his pills. Nate wasn’t worried about that part, knowing that someone else would be around to monitor Davey in his absence. Davey was assigned a watcher, after all.

            Davey, two years younger and twice as ornery as Nate had ever dreamed of being, was likely sitting at home right now. Likely, Nate reminded himself. For all he knew, Davey could have already left. He may have snuck out of the flat, wearing black to hide in the shadows as he wandered into the bad neck of town, one of those sleazy bars. Davey could very well be skulking around one of the bars Nate had been patrolling, perhaps even the specific place where he had discovered all of these new secrets about his baby brother.

            "Gotta get home, gotta get home....shit, hope he didn't already leave, shit shit shit."

            That was the mumbled chorus that Nate was repeating under his breath, taking brisk steps to match the crisp white of his uniform. He was almost off duty--almost. His boots were not stomping in the direction of any drug rings, gang rallies, or stick-ups, there was nothing going on that he would normally have to deal with. The night was calm, and getting later. It was pushing ten o'clock, and the curfew sirens were about to start wailing soon. As the top lieutenant in the Academy, with his badge pinned to his front and his mask tugged over his face, Nate Collins had special privileges. Privileges that allowed him to stay out later at night, to carry multiple firearms and a taser at his waist, privileges that allowed him to roam the city streets after all the other citizens should technically already be indoors. He could be outdoors as long as he wanted, just as long as he was working. But Nate’s business resided indoors, stuck in between the doors and windows of his own “happy” home.

            Nate hadn’t “ranked up” enough to merit quality housing quite yet. He lived with his brother in one of the more run-down districts, in a cramped two bedroom apartment. The City had very strict rules and regulations when it came to who had the privilege to live where, which was understandable. Nate was still only a lieutenant, unmarried and a few months away from his graduation. He would be made a captain then, and he would finally be given an apartment in the heart of town. He was pushing through that heart right now, gradually moving past the monumental platinum buildings to shorter, stockier skyscrapers. The City towered over him nonetheless, but the farther he went from its center, the lower all the roofs became.

            His residence was “dingy” at best. Nate understood, though, that there were families who needed space far more than his small family needed. That family of course only consisted of him and Davey, cut in half after their parents had suffered mutual rounds of cancer last year. He supposed it was better that they had dropped at the same time. They really had loved each other, and it was better that they had gone on to whatever afterlife awaited them. Another sharp pang of worry went through Nate’s gut. He remembered the years they were born, and remembered their own chemical dependencies. Davey always brushed his obligation to medication off, and Nate had gotten to the point where he was shoving pills into peanut butter sandwiches to sneak them down his brother’s throat. There was too much radiation in the air to overlook the threat of cancer, and it was always yanking at the bad of Nate’s mind. The kids being born right into the heart of the city were safer, but he and Davey had grown up during the war. They were at a much greater risk to “contract”. They were a lot more likely to succumb to it.

             The City had gone to leaps and bounds reconstructing itself after the war. The East Coast was wiped out, and the former Western States conglomerated themselves into “The Pacific Union” before internal struggles broke out, and the City rose superior. It had been logical enough, given how much population was concentrated inside of it. Most people had flocked to it after the bombs hit, assuming they survived the bombs in the first place. Much of the country hadn’t survived the blasts, left unlivable by the amount of fumes that stuck around after the fires cleared. The City took in all of the survivors, and brought them hope.

            The City delivered medication and order in a time following chaos. People were bleeding out their eyeballs, noses, and ears for a good while after the war. Many keeled over and died, but a great many more opened their mouths to the scientists of the City, obediently swallowing the new “tester medications.” With those, their anxieties evaporated and the blood settled back into their veins where it belonged. The vomiting stopped, the panic mobs stopped, and life started to be able to return to normality. There was still crime, but Nate was helping when it came to putting a stop to that. He was also meant to stop anything that might disrupt the order, period—not just petty crime. The biggest outside concern was the rebellion against the City, taking place by miscreants in the boondocks of the desert, past the City’s borders. This was the rebellion that seemed to be dragging his terror of a little brother in by the collar.                       

            Despite the two years and decades of maturity in between him and Davey, the polarization between valedictorian and bottom ten percent, between Academy recruit and reform school prisoner, Nate still had a stronger itch of loyalty towards his misguided younger brother than he did to the City. That was why he was running home so fast now, past the white buildings and moving into the gray. Throughout primary school, middle school, and as much of high school that they had shared, Nate had always been given the obligation of looking after Davey when their parents were busy, or not at the school, or not on the playground. Their parents weren't around at all anymore, and the burden of looking after his delinquent younger brother had fallen onto Nate alone. On top of his six AM to three PM schooling and training obligation, his three-thirty to seven patrols, and his top secret investigative work that took place after hours, he was still tasked with keeping Davey out of trouble on top of everything else.

            Regardless of how hard Nate tried, Davey still always managed to wind up in the pits. Cigarettes, graffiti, drugs, and a multitude of other (relatively) small crimes that had landed Davey into Maxwell, the City's reform school where Davey was to spend the next eight months until he graduated high school. The small crimes he had committed before before, limited to curfew breaking and badmouthing authority, were nothing compared to the current situation. The evidence Nate held tucked within his pocket was proof that Davey had finally sunk himself into the worst kind of trouble he could've possibly managed. Now, Nate knew for fact, Davey had fallen into line with the rebellion. Granted, the City had seen a few small rebellions before, but all of them had toppled, crumbled, or disintegrated in some other way. Going against the City had never worked. It had always been far too much of a force to reckon with. This newest movement, though, was starting to become excessively problematic. Nate wasn’t just getting weekly bulletins about the potential threat that it held—he was getting daily bulletins.

            After the war, the City had risen up and taken over for a reason. When everyone was crawling in the remains of the suburbs, wailing and confused over lost loved ones, lost jobs, the stink in the sky, the City managed to fix everything. Logic and common sense led one to believe such a huge problem solver as the City had been couldn't be bad. That was the main reason so many people had calmly obeyed every tenant the City had put in place after the disasters, after all beginning with moderate rules and building up to the curfews and dress codes that were in place now. Those had all been reasonable. Every new rule that the City had instated had just made the city more secure, or a better place to live in. It was clean and prosperous, and if it weren’t for the rules, things would be like they were before the war again—or worse, the way they had been after the war.

            Nate had bought into those reasons just like everyone else, faithful and true. They had made sense, and he had just wanted everything to be okay. He had only been an elementary schooler when the wars took place, at least the big ones. At the tender age of eight years old, he had been clutching a horrified little Davey as they bunkered down in the cellar of their (former) home in ex-Oregon. The blasts were far enough from their house to hide safely in the ground. They weren’t far away enough to avoid the impact, or the chemicals that soaked the air afterwards. Nate had only been barely old enough to understand what was going on. The best that he got from the whole situation was “take care of your brother”—directions given by their parents as they pulled out thick blankets and stacked up canned food.

            As a just barely turned eight year old boy, he had done the best he could with this information. For three weeks, he had snuggled tight against Davey in their camping cot at night, holding his hands and shushing him to sleep when it seemed like his crying wouldn’t let up. He passed him extra food from his own rations, and once the food ran out, once their parents poked their heads out of the cellar, he had been the one to reassure Davey that they’d get more food soon, soon, soon, for the two days that they were made to go without.

            When their parents buckled them into the backseat of their old station wagon, he held Davey’s hand the whole way to the City. He held it again when they started their first day of elementary school ten months after the incident happened, at one of the first new City schools. But Nate severely doubted that any coddling or cuddling would get Davey to see sense now. His brother’s kicking and screaming was a lot more impactful now than it had been when they were kids.

            Nate had been fine with the City for years. He honestly had. The City had given him a job, it had given him safety, and it had given him promise. There was promise that nothing bad would really happen, and that if it did, he could be the one to protect it. The fact that he hadn’t had an option in that hadn’t bothered him until recently. He had been selected for the top branch of the City militia based on his stellar performance in school. There weren’t many careers offered by the city, after all. He didn’t want to wind up working the cleanup fields, like his parents had. That, he suspected, was the reason they had dropped in the first place.

            The City had a lot to offer. There was regimented housing, there were clothes for everyone, and food stamps distributed in a fair and even fashion. Those few days of hunger he and Davey had experienced had been forgotten after the City took his family in. Davey never went hungry anymore, and Nate ignored his stomach’s occasional demands for extra sustenance whenever he was working late. There was no reason for him to be given any extra privilege. Everyone got the same share of everything. That was why the City worked in the first place.

            But Ricky, Ricky had been telling him just why the City didn’t work. Ricky was new. The night they met had been a normal patrol for Nate, some month and a half ago. He had stomped into one of the filthiest bars in the outskirt areas, grabbing people by the throat to snarl at them through his mask and demand information. A few finger points led him to a back room, and that was where he met Ricky. He was a man with the tendency to ooze, draping himself over an old pool table that was being used as a makeshift desk when Nate found him. Nate pulled his gun out immediately, and Ricky hadn’t even flinched. He just blinked at Nate, lazy smiling and asking if he could be of any assistance. Nate snapped a pair of cuffs around his wrists, informing him of his rights (there weren’t many) before turning to rummage through the papers on the table. That was when Nate dropped his gun on the floor, jaw falling open as he read the name scribbled across the page in chickenscratch. Davey Collins.

            Obviously, Nate’s next plan of action was to pick up his weapon, breaking the composure he had been trained to uphold for the sake of shoving the tip of his gun against Ricky’s temple and demanding what the papers meant. Nate spit and sputtered as he made his commands, and was stopped by Ricky’s knee to his gut, stopped when he fell winded to the floor. Ricky had criticized his form and composure, casually sliding his wrists out of the cuffs and yanking off Nate’s mask. Swearing and still gasping for air, Ricky grinned at him. Nate’s gut sank.

            Military members were not supposed to be seen by those they were after. It was the first rule, and everyone knew that. Those both inside and outside the City knew it, and Nate couldn’t do anything but gape up at the greasy, offensively dressed man now standing above him. Nate shut his eyes, expecting death, but he had just listened to the sound of boots strutting around him.

            “Well, well. So you’re big brother,” the man had said. Nate didn’t speak. “You really don’t look alike at all. He wasn’t kidding.”

            Nate’s stomach twisted. Had Davey been speaking with this man? What was the connection?

            “I’m Ricky. It’s about time you and I had a conversation. I’ve certainly heard enough about you.”

            After that, Nate opened his eyes and took Ricky’s hand. The dirt stuck to his glove, and Nate was tempted to wipe it off on his pristine white pants before he realized that he shouldn’t knock the hospitality of someone who had just helped him to his feet. He was back off of his feet quickly though, as Ricky pulled up a chair for him. It was in the dingy back room of the bar that he and Ricky had their first conversation—the first of many to come.

            In a month and a half, Ricky told him more than enough. Or "SS," whatever the code name Ricky liked to swing around the alleys by. Rebels liked to pick their new names to be sets of two letters--nothing else. Nate hadn’t known that. It was a useful fact to know, to report. But Nate hadn’t reported any of the information. Not after Ricky had told him his brother's code name, too. He didn't even believe it at first, not until Ricky pulled out that jacket, blazing red and in perfect uniform with all the other bright, grotesque colors the rebels liked to carry around on their backs. And Nate still wouldn't believe it if it hadn't smelled so much like Davey's sweat. The circumstantial evidence and the concrete facts piled up and piled up after more and more conversations, until Nate no longer had any room at all for denial. Davey was in it. And now, he was too.

            Nate would have been fine if he had just been left in the dark, as he had for all the time leading up to this. He had thought everything was fine—certainly, it was better than running around in the desert zones outside of the city, fighting for survival each day for a cause that didn’t even seem legitimate, much less feasible. Things weren’t fine, though. Ricky told him. Ricky told him a lot. Ricky told him about how the cocktail of drugs that everyone got prescribed wasn’t stopping cancer—it was stopping thought. The drugs were sedating individuality and any hint of rebellion inside of the city. It was why things were always so calm. Nate was excused from the numbing effect. He was on a different mix of drugs, being what he was in the military. He had always wondered why life seemed to snap so much clearer into focus after he finished high school and started his career training. He had always wondered why the patrols were needed in the first place, and what the whole war was really about—why it was still going on, for one.           

            He had been meeting Ricky at the bar every night he had been able to. He was still managing his priorities to actually get information. The point of his late night missions was to pick up facts, after all. So Nate fed his boss information about minor drug rings that inner-City street gangs had been setting up. The real resistance didn’t do anything relating to them except buy off of them. There were a couple pills that were necessary for survival. Just a few to stave off the radiation. The rest were to stabilize the brain, to erase thought and create the flat atmosphere the city boasted. Nate had always wondered why the other citizens were so quiet. He had always wondered why Davey was always so loud compared to everyone else in town.

            Ricky trusted Nate easily, and Nate still couldn’t understand why. He had asked him about it numerous times, and every time Ricky simply smiled at him, shook his head. He never said anything to Nate in response to those questions, he just sat back and waited for Nate to ask another question that would prod at the motives of the City, waiting to deliver Nate another bit of enlightenment. He seemed to know everything, and left Nate feeling stupid after every nightly visit, stumbling home and tripping over curbs. He was never so graceful after coming home from those meetings with Ricky. Nate chalked it up to distraction.

            He would have met Ricky again tonight, but there hadn’t been any time for that. Nate’s official duties had run late tonight, and he had a greater priority anyway. He had to make sure Davey was at home. Nate had to stop Davey before he left. The last time he had spoken to Ricky, he heard that Davey was planning to leave soon. Ricky hadn’t been able to swing him. The burden had fallen on Nate, as usual. The “big brother” yoke was weighing heavy on his shoulders, and tonight he didn’t stumble on his pathway home. He was brisk and deliberate, just like his military training had bred him to be. This mission wasn’t one he was running for the city, though. This was a mission of blood.

            Hopefully, Nate thought, Davey would be home. He hoped that he hadn't jumped the gun and set off into the desert sooner than expected. That was the last thing he wanted. Davey was too stupid to actually get out of the city himself. He'd run out with his head hot, certainly, but there was no way he would get out. He'd trip right into the barbed wire, into the butt of a low end cop's gun. And those grunts didn't ask questions. That was why Nate took the stairs in doubles, running twice as fast up them when finally reached the dark gray building he and Davey shared a cramped apartment in.

            He was tugging off his work mask as soon as he got inside the front door, yanking at his collar to loosen it around his neck and working on undoing the straps of his bulletproof vest. The uniform was restrictive and miserable, and it existed mainly to conceal identity and ensure anonymity. There was no need for that right now. Davey knew who we was. The small kitchen stank and there were dishes stacked up in the sink, heavy and congealed. It tended to happen. Nate was too busy to clean, and hell would freeze over before Davey picked up a sponge. In addition to the reek of filthy dishes and rotting food, there was a particular stench coming from Davey's room, filling up the whole place. It was a familiar mix of chemicals that polluted the apartment way too often, and here it was again. Nate gritted his teeth, swearing uselessly to himself before throwing his mask down on the counter and stomping into his younger brother's room.

            "Davey, I swear to God, we've had this conversation once, we've had it a million fucking times." he growled once he had kicked the door open. On the unmade twin bed before him, drifting above a sea of trash, the brother in question was lying on his back with a cigarette between his lips, scratching aimlessly at his stomach through a wifebeater. Davey’s room was polluted with smoke, as Nate always tried to prevent. Obviously, it was to no avail.

            "Wha?" Davey asked, not bothering to sit up.

"No smoking in the goddamn flat." Nate said, going over and yanking the offending material out of his brother's mouth. "Where do you even get this stuff? They're banned in the city."

            "A lot of things are banned in the city. Just gotta know where to find them." he smirked.

            "So you've got more? Is that it? Get up, I'm going through your bed."

            Davey rolled his eyes, turning over on his side to face the wall. "Fuck off, Nate. It's cute that you're yknow, the big guy in the special forces, but guess what? I don't give a shit."

            "You don't give a shit about anyone. That's your problem."

            "So?"

            "So, it's your own damn fault you're in reform school." Nate snapped. He was hesitant to actually confront Davey about the bigger issue at hand. There was no real way to ask his younger brother about his involvement in the movement, at least not in a way that would end with Davey doing anything but snapping at him, potentially hitting him. The first time Nate caught Davey with harder drugs, shortly after their parents passed away, he had snatched them away and flushed them all down the toilet, taking off days from work for the sake of keeping Davey on personal house arrest. Davey had thanked him by giving him a black eye and a bloody nose, and Nate (technically) used the cuffs around his belt illegally, handcuffing Davey to the bedpost. It may have been extreme, but it had worked. Davey still got into trouble enough, but for whatever reason, he got the message to not do anything so bad as that again.

            Davey listened to Nate occasionally. He was terrible in terms of his behavior, and he always had been. Davey had grown up being given whatever he wanted, and stopping the world whenever he decided to stop crying. He didn’t cry so much at seventeen years old, but he still managed to drag everything else in Nate’s life to a screeching halt whenever he decided that he needed more attention. Nate still didn’t know if Davey was even genuinely addicted to cigarettes, or if he just enjoyed having something to grind his older brother’s gears.

            "Well good thing I've got perfect big brother to make up for me."

            "You could've gotten into the Academy, too."

            "You think I want to? I'm not a prissy, goody two shoes...asshole like you. I don’t want to fight for the city. I don’t want to put on a stupid uniform and chant around all day."

            Nate huffed, taking his black gloves off and stashing them in his pocket. When he took another good look around Davey's room, he wished that he had left them on. There was trash everywhere, and the room smelled like sweat, rotting food, and of course smoke from those cigarettes. Davey's bed was unmade, and he was wearing his shoes as he lay across the bare mattress, sheets strewn on the floor surrounding it. Nate made a point to not come in here very often. For one, he and Davey tended to wind up arguing whenever they were near each other—probably a result of Davey’s never-ending ennui. For two, it reeked.

            "You could've at least done something useful with your life. You know what happens to reform school kids? They get sent out to the boondocks to work at mining useful uranium out of the fallout sites."

            "Sounds like a fun time."

            "Jesus christ, you think I want you out there?" Nate grabbed Davey by the shoulder, forcing him to roll onto his back again. His brother's eyes narrowed, irritated, and he tried to turn away from him again. "You know they cut your meds down when you go out there, right? You know they don't care how much radiation you get exposed to? You know the whole point of that is so you die sooner, so society doesn't have to deal with you?"

            Nate figured that was also a motivating factor in Davey’s urgency to leave. His graduation day was fast approaching, and it was bothering Nate as much as he could assume it was bothering Davey. Granted, it was hard to read Davey. But brothers knew more than most, and Nate could pick up on things. Davey had just a short time to go, and he was getting obviously more irritated every day. He was speaking to Nate less, even going out on the town less, and Nate knew he was plotting to leave on his own instead of meeting with Ricky so much anymore. Ricky had told him, but Nate also figured that he should’ve run into Davey at some point in the bars by now. He hadn’t.

            Having a younger brother involved in the sort of trouble that a resistance movement merited was never a good thing. But Nate would have honestly felt a lot better about it if Davey had at least been connected to Ricky more. Ricky had told him that Davey had cut himself off, though. Nate wasn’t surprised. Davey wanted to do things all by himself, just like he always pretended like he was capable of doing. This time was no different than all the other times he had run off on his own in middle school, even elementary school, when he fell flat on his face and Nate always had to be there to pick him up and fix him. Except this time, this time, if Davey screwed up he’d most likely be dead.

            "Good. Maybe then Mom and Dad will be happy in their graves. Then they can be the proud parents of Nate Collins, and only Nate Collins, exterminator extraordinary."

            "Extraordinaire."

            "Fuck off."

            "No, you fuck off. If you get yourself back with yknow, good behavior or whatever, they might just put you in a factory instead. I've heard of that happening." Nate had, a few times. He was still dawdling. Nate wasn’t even planning on staying in the City himself anymore. That was just another thing he wasn’t able to tell Davey yet. Talking to Ricky had opened his eyes far enough, and Nate had a strong enough gut feeling to figure out something was wrong. He had ignored it long enough, but the problems of the city weren’t worth ignoring anymore. Rather, they were worth acknowledging.

            "I don't want to work in a factory."

            "What do you want to do then?"

            "Nothing."

            "Great. So just sit around getting high off your ass all day?" Nate swallowed, trying to keep up the assertive front. He wanted this to be a confrontation for as long as possible. Nate already knew what Davey really wanted to do. Davey wanted to put on bright colors and a mask, start running around outside the city limits and planting bombs inside the city limits, late at night when no one was looking. When even the whitest, most pristine buildings of the city fell black underneath the night sky.

            "Yup." Davey smirked.

            "Give me the rest of your cigarettes." Nate said, reaching out to tuck his hand under the side of Davey's mattress. He was already familiar enough with the inside of it. He had searched it previously.

            "No." Davey slapped his hand away, glaring at him. Nate almost wanted to ask him if he had something else to hide. He already knew what Davey thought he was hiding. The maps, the plans, all of the notes in Davey’s crummy handwriting. The way he shaped his A’s and Z’s and everything in between hadn’t changed since he was twelve. Nate had also already taken some “souvenirs” out from in between the mattress. And Davey didn’t even know. More reason for Nate to believe Davey wouldn’t make it on his own. He couldn’t even cover his tracks inside his own house.

            "Isn't someone supposed to come and check on you?"

            "No."

"What do you mean, no? You're supposed to have someone assigned to you. Everyone in your school gets a watcher." This, Nate was genuinely curious about. It was true, reform school being small enough and the students within it enough of a worry to deserve special monitoring. Davey was supposed to have a “case worker” come and check up on him, make sure he wasn’t getting into trouble. Nate had never seen one, though. He hoped it was just a matter of him never being around.

            "Not when I have a brother like you. Told 'em you'd check on me." Davey said, grinning. "You're doing a pretty shitty job, y'know."

            Nate ran a hand through his close-sheared brown hair, exasperated, and then slumped onto the end of Davey's bed. Exterminator extraordinaire. More like babysitter. He wasn’t exactly surprised that Davey had wiggled out of that requirement like that. Likely, Davey had forged his signature onto some paperwork. Nate was known enough around the city, one of the most praised young recruits of the year. He always walked past coffee rooms where his name was being mentioned. Always good things. He also heard the phrase “if only it weren’t for his brother…” more often than he could count. 

            This was, of course, why Davey had been able to sneak around as much as he had been. Nate was supposed to be watching him, and as far as anyone else knew, Nate was watching him. Davey wasn’t being watched by anyone, though. He was just running around town doing whatever he wished. Nate was monitoring him now, certainly. He had been whenever he could manage for the past month. But there just hadn’t been enough time. Nate knew he was only catching him now by a streak of pure, blind luck.

            "For god's sake, Davey, I've got enough.....going on right now."

            "Oh, like you ever do anything. All you have to do is go down to the bars and blast wavehead ass."

            "I'm not a blaster. You know so much about what exterminators do, prove it."

            "Oh, right. Then why did Jimmy come over with a laserburnt arm the other day?"

            "You're having people over here? You're--oh, never mind. That's not the point. Anyway. I'm not doing blast jobs. I'm doing intelligence." Nate mumbled, averting his eyes a bit. The part Davey had just eluded to, with having friends over, Nate didn’t trust that. The last thing he needed was their house being marked down on a map “to be investigated.” Especially now that Nate was involved. He was unofficially involved, at least right now. But he and Ricky had talked enough. Nate had let one sentence slide a week ago, one about Davey. Saying that if Davey was in, he was in. It was obvious at this point that Davey was most definitely in.

            Davey raised an eyebrow. "So you're being a condescending know-it all jerk, as usual?

            "You know what I mean. Stop being a little shit. I was gonna tell you, yknow." Nate cracked his neck, trying to give off the impression of casual laziness.

            "Tell me what?"

            "The...stuff I've been learning." Nate took a deep breath, hoping that this explanation deal wouldn't take too long. He knew Davey was already a part of everything, that the frown on his brother's face was more of a defense than anything else. “Explaining” things to him was more an attempt to lead into the inevitably more serious conversation that was yet to come.

            "Why, so you can lure details out of me? Get some more information for your boss?"

            "You know stuff?" Nate said, too eagerly.

            "No." Davey snapped, leaving no room for interpretation.

            "The people you hang around with probably do." Nate attempted, working again on trying to lure facts out of him. It was easy when he was out in the field, interrogating people with a gun to their head and his cold exterior up in front of him. Trying to hassle Davey was different. He knew being cold wouldn’t work, and getting anything out of him would be like pulling teeth. It had always been that way.

            "Yeah, and that's why I'm not going to have any friends if I tell them I'm related to you." Davey sneered, cracking his own neck and rolling his head to look out the tiny window. There was nothing outside.

            "Ouch." Nate said, scratching at his cheek and feigning hurt feelings.

            "Oh, like you actually care."

            "You're right, I don't." He did. He already knew Davey’s “friends.” He had seen them in the bar, and only managed to creep past them thanks to the mask of their uniform. He’d eavesdropped on them on enough times to know they didn’t like Davey so much. They weren’t reliable for him to run with. They didn’t care—really, they hardly cared about Davey at all, and even if they had, they wouldn’t have cared like Nate did.

            The two brothers glared at each other, briefly, before Nate sighed, starting to untie one of his boots before continuing. "This one guy, Ricky. He was telling me a lot about the resistance movement."

            "The resistance movement? Well that just sounds fuckin' gay."

            "Oh, shut up Davey. Like you don't know exactly what I'm talking about. That movement's responsible for your precious little cig fix. And a lot of other things." That did make Davey shut up. "He was telling me....about how they're getting short on people. How the amount of like, good kids are dwindling compared to the half-assed druggies who like...who yknow, want the color and not the commitment."

            "Why are you telling me this? I'm not your boss."

            "Because I came in your room the other day. When you weren't home." Nate blurted, abandoning subtlety. He couldn’t take the dilly-dallyng around. He couldn’t drag this out any longer. The “other day” he was referencing was closer to a week ago, but it didn’t matter. He just wanted to get this over with, to lure Davey out of his stupid shell and get him to talk. Nate already knew what Davey had been up to. He just wanted Davey to tell him himself. To prove once and for all that it wasn’t all just made up.

            "A-and?" Davey stuttered, sitting up in bed now. Some of his hair had fallen in front of his eyes, and he pushed it back roughly with his hand, wiping the grease from it on the bed.

            Nate shrugged off his bulletproof vest, starting to unbutton the jacket he wore underneath. From one of the internal pockets, he pulled out a brightly colored swath of fabric. A bright, bright yellow bandana. He held it in his hand, looking at Davey expectantly. That was one of the items that Nate hadn’t left trapped between Davey’s mattresses. It was enough proof to shove in Davey’s face.

            "That--that's not--" Davey tried to say, scooting back against the wall.

            "You're already fucking part of it. I haven't told you anything new. And you want out, don't you?" Nate asked, hands shaking as they clenched the bandana tighter in his hands.

            "I--"

            "That's why you don't give a shit what happens to you right now, in the city or whatever. Because you plan on being out before you graduate reform school, right? Aren't you gonna leave? Aren’t you?"

            "I'm not going anywhere!" Davey barked, slamming the wall with his fist. 

            "You're a crappy liar." Nate snapped, flinging the bandana at his chest. Davey caught it, wadding it up and clenching it tight in his hand. It appeared that Davey still had every intention to cover it up, to hide it in his fist as though it had never existed, but the fabric still poked out in between his fingers.

            "And? Like I'd tell you if I was fucking planning on it. Knowing you you'd just--just--"

            "Can you shut up for one second?" Nate hissed, grabbing Davey by the front of his wifebeater. "Look, I wanted to fucking talk to you."

            "About what, about how much trouble I'm gonna be in? About how if I confess, you might get me a lesser sentence?" Davey sputtered, trying to squirm out of Nate’s grip. “About, about how you’re going to cover my ass? O-or are you arresting me? Huh? Is that it?”

            "About both of us leaving." Nate whispered harshly.

            Davey's tense shoulders relaxed, and Nate loosened the grip he had fisted in his brother's shirt. "You're not serious." Davey said quietly.

            "I'm serious."

            "Why? You've got the whole city at your command."

            "No, I don’t. And besides, I don't want that. You think being an exterminator fucking gets me off? You think I signed up for this career. No, dumbass. I don't want to be here any more than you do." Nate felt a weight slide off of his shoulders as he finally said that out loud. He had been thinking that for months, with every early morning and late night he had been forced to run around in. Talking to Ricky had just solidified his dissatisfaction. Now that he knew something was wrong, now that he knew he was contributing to the greater problem, he wanted out. He hated it here. He could finally think that.

            The City had served its time well enough. It had given Nate an education, a slurry of opportunity. It had given Davey the equivalent of a death sentence, and both of them a distinct marking. Nate in his exterminator-white uniform, Davey in his juvie-black uniform. He wore white and black at home, but Nate couldn’t shake the image of Davey wearing that red jacket from his mind—the one Ricky had shown him. It would suit him  a lot better, he thought. Davey’s favorite color had always been red, growing up. He was still just a kid, really. Nate’s stomach sank thinking about it. And he himself hadn’t even turned twenty years old yet.

            "What do you want?" Davey asked, snapping Nate out of his thoughts.

            "Look, I've been thinking....and then, with what Ricky's been saying...."

            "Oh, what? So Ricky's your boyfriend? You fell in love with some, some alley rat, and now you wanna go off on your perfect fucking adventure?" Davey snapped, shoving Nate off of him. "That's it, isn't it? You're just like another one of those....fucking, star crossed....one of those warning stories that they told us in middle school. About being, being seduced by pretty outsiders, and--"

            "Davey, Jesus christ, will you listen to me for more than two minutes? Wow, asshole, maybe I've got a brother to be concerned about. A brother who's been planning this behind my back for what, six months? Eight? Ricky told me he met you, dumbass. He knows you already. I know you know him already. God, the, the whole idea of…of you was the only reason I didn’t take him in in the first place."

            "I don't even know who the fuck this guy is."

            Nate sighed, grabbed Davey closer again, and whispered a different name in his ear. The anger from his face dissipated. "O-oh. That guy." he said again, looking down.

            "Yeah, that guy. God, did you think I wouldn't find out about you? They showed me your goddamn jacket. And I’m not stupid, Davey. I…they…they had papers about you. And the way they talked about you…"

            "I don't get why they trust you in the first place. It's not like you blend in with those guys."

            "Oh, so now you’re admitting it? Ricky knew you were my brother from the moment he saw me."

            "We don't look alike."

            "We’re alike enough."

            "Fine. So he told you about me. Okay then. So what else has he told you? What did your super-sleuthing divulge, huh?" Davey tried to scoot back on the bed from his older brother, shoulderblades hitting the corner wall of the room.

            "Good word choice. You been reading more in school, Daveyboy?" Nate sneered.

            "Fuck you."

            "Whatever. Anyway, they saw me come in, everyone in the main area, and...."

            "All dressed up in black and whites." Davey snorted. Nate glared at him. The only black Nate had was his vest, blocking him from stray bullets. He wasn’t all in black like Davey was—literally exemplifying the idea of a “black mark.” Davey’s record had gotten so high with black marks that he really just wound up turning into one.

            "They saw me come in, and the whole place froze."

            "Well, no shit they did. Which one did you go to?"

            "The...I don't know the name of it. It's...painted purple on the inside, out in Area One. You know what I’m talking about." Nate said hurriedly, frowning.

            "Oh, that one. Yeah, keep going." Davey crossed his arms again, tucking his hands into his armpits. He at least looked interested. His posture didn’t merit it, but Nate could see it in his eyes.

            "So okay, I got in--place is packed, for one. The kids in there, thought I was going to blast 'em all, but I just pulled some punk kid aside and told him to send me to the top dog."

            "Ricky just likes to think he's top dog."

            "He knew enough, he may as well have been. So I run off the usual questions, and he's smirking and smiling. Telling me everything I want to know. I was surprised, I mean...with everyone I've met before, I've had to...use methods..." Nate broke off, looking down. His eyes lingered on the gun holster attached to his thigh. He was deliberately leaving out what had really happened in that room. Davey didn’t need to know about that burst of weakness. Obviously, Ricky hadn’t told him. Ricky hadn’t told Davey a thing about him, Nate realized. That was trust. That was more trust than he’d ever gotten from anyone in the military, or school.

            "Yeah, I know. Half my friends have scars because of you."

            "Your friends are all idiots. Anyway. When I was finished with Ricky, when I was about to cuff him, lead him in, all that shit...he dropped your name. He asked me how the little Collins was doing."

            "I'm not fuckin' little."

            "And that's when my heart stopped, I guess..."

            "Gay."

            "Really? Shut up." Nate sighed before continuing. "So I asked yknow, what he knew about you, what's Davey doing around here. And then he told me your other name. The....name you made up. To fit in with that crew." Again, Ricky had told him that when Nate was sitting in front of him on the floor, sweaty and wheezing. Davey still didn’t need to know how things had actually happened. It was more important than ever that Nate keep up the superior “tough big-bro” image. He needed what little respect Davey could afford him now, right now. Otherwise, there was no way he’d get Davey to follow him.

            "It's cool, isn't it?" Davey smirked, rolling his shoulders back and shoving his chest out.

            "It's what it is. It's not the type of thing I like to hear from someone in that level of society."

            "What's not?"

            "My little brother's name being tossed around in that kind of crowd, period. Much less the...new name he's calling himself. I'd rather you be David, Dave, Davey, whatever than some, some....renegade. So, yknow, since I didn't want your ass laid on the chopping block, I let him go. And he just waves at me, tells me to come back whenever I want. That he'll be there."

            Davey smiled. "That's Ricky, alright."

            Nate just sighed "So that's where I've been lately. Sniffing out around there, getting the...debriefing on the entire underground movement thanks to Ricky and his pals. I’ve been going there for about a month now. Surprised I didn’t run into you.”

            “I’ve been working on my own.” Davey said, averting eye contact.

            “Oh, speaking of things I've learned. I was wondering where my extra gun went. 'Till I started talking to them, that is. Turns out you've been practicing with it?"

            "Yeah I have. N'I bet I'm a better shot than you." Davey said, sticking out his chest a little, the statement obviously triggering a surge of pride in him.

            "I have a year and a half of government training under my belt that you don't. I'll bet you're not." Nate retorted.

            He wasn’t concerned with Davey shooting. Rather, he had been relieved as soon as he heard that Davey was in training to fight. Davey was good with his fists, and Nate knew that from personal experience with them, but guns were where it was at now. The only thing Nate had to worry about was that gun, with his number on it, turning up in the wrong place. Ricky had assured him it was safe, though. Ricky was a lot more responsible with things than Davey, and had the sense to lock it up at the end of the day. Nate didn’t want to even think of what could have happened should Davey had been caught on the streets with an unauthorized weapon. Especially in his blacks.

            "Ricky says I'm a natural."

            "Ricky said I'm better than you." Nate smirked. As serious as the situation was, he couldn’t help but assert that. Davey had always been jealous of Nate, at least a little bit. He didn’t make it obvious, but Nate could tell. He had especially been able to tell when he came home and caught a much younger Davey trying to spin his gun around and do tricks with it. That had been funny. Funny until he accidentally fired it at the wall, woke up their parents, and got locked in his room for a week. Davey wasn’t allowed near Nate for a while after that, out of fear that he might knock Nate out and steal another “new toy.”

            "Fucker."

            Nate smiled, just a little bit, before his face turned serious again, continuing on his previous train of thought. "He also said...that I'd be an asset to the team. To the...the movement, or whatever. And that we've both....that we've both got it."

            "Got what? A good aim?" Davey still had that smug smirk plastered across his face, caught up in whatever sense of pride he had just remembered in regards to his own shooting skills. Nate ignored his remark.

            "He called it...the "itch". I don't really know what he means, but..."

            "The itch to get out. That's how he explained it to me."

            "Yeah?" Nate already knew. Ricky had told him, too.

            "Yeah. Yknow, the drugs don't work with everyone. It's....some biology shit. It doesn't...click. That's what Ricky said. That's why there are like, people trying to take the city down and get out in the first place."

            “I know.”

            " Did you know I haven't taken my meds in two months."

            "Jesus."

            "I'm fuckin' fine, Nate."

            "Any of them?"

            "There's only one pill, just one out of everything they give us that does anything for the radiation. Ricky told me."

            "Good.” Nate sighed. “The last thing I need is you…you winding up like Mom and Dad.”

            "Well, do I look fuckin' sick to you? After the...crash..period...whatever...I've been just fine. It sucked when I was weaning off the other ones, though. I got real bent out of shape. Remember a few months ago? When I got all pukey and feverish? Yeah, that was my detox."

            "You told me you had the stomach flu." Nate said, frowning at him. He had been weaned off everything more slowly in the Academy. He had been told that military members required a more intensive mix of drugs, to protect them against the higher levels of radiation. What Ricky had explained to him was that “rookie” recruits were gradually taken off of the sedation medication for a combination of reasons. For one, there was the need to increase mental sharpness while out in combat areas. That was self explanatory enough, and it made enough sense. The second thing Ricky explained was that not everyone was inherently obedient enough to be removed from underneath the careful wing of medication.

            It had been an ugly walk home that night, when Nate realized that he was just the type of recruit they were intent on weeding out. None of his test scores could scrape that fact off of his skin. While at that point he had been starting to understand just how unfortunate the city was, it still stung a bit. In the city there wasn’t a lot to take pride in, and for a while he had been trying to pull pride from what he had accomplished in his training. Pride in itself was likely one of the emotions that wasn’t allowed, though. Nate was starting to figure out that a lot of things about him, the him that wasn’t on medication, weren’t allowed in the city.

            "And you believed me?"

            "Guess I shouldn't have."

            "The rest of 'em...ditching just made me able to think clearer. To notice all the shit that was slipping by before."

            "And what shit is that?"

            "How fucked up the city is."

            Nate was silent for a while, picking at a stray thread on the sleeve of his jacket. "They cut us down to one pill, too. In the Academy. They said it would make us sharper during training. It was also a...test, they said. I thought they meant endurance against the radiation. Some kind of physical fitness test."

            "So you knew it was shit." Davey snapped before Nate even quite finished his sentence.

            "No. I thought...I thought they were giving us some all in one pill...with the other effects, too. I thought that maybe they'd just found a way to condense the drugs. But then I started...I dunno, feeling."

            "Your head cleared out?"

            "Yeah, that's exactly what happened. I got angrier, I got...sadder, more...edgy. I got edgy. That's the word."

            "Why would they cut you down when you're in the Academy?" Davey asked, scratching at his head. Nate cringed, trying to remember the last time he had seen a towel on the floor of his brother’s room. It had been a while. Nate prayed that Davey hadn’t picked up mites.

            "They said we needed to...test out. That's what they told us, they said it was a test. And when I got angry, or...upset, whatever you wanna call it...that started happening more after I got shoved into school. I mean, it'd been kind of iffy when I was still in high school, but...after I got into training I felt like I was losing my head. I just bit it down, though. I figured…it was a test. That’s what they said, i-it was a test. And I guess I failed."

            "You never fail anything."

            "There’s a first time for everything.” Nate glared at him.

            "Big brother Nate finally got knocked down a peg." Davey sneered.

            "Whatever. Look. I wanna leave with you. That's what I've been trying to say." Nate said, waving a hand around in the air.

            "Yeah? Yeah, I fucking bet you do. Bullshit. What gave you your fucking wake up call? What's your fuckin rebel sob story gonna be?"

            "Well, maybe if you actually shut up and listened to me I’d be able get to the sob part of it.” Nate huffed. “But, anyway I...I started back...going back. Not so much to investigate, but just...to talk. To talk to Ricky and well, we've been talking....a lot. A whole lot."

            "Oh, no I get it. You haven't been talking at all. So he's your new boyfriend? That it? You want some sand ass to keep you company now, that it? You're attracted to the fucking novelty? Huh? Did he suck you off or just jerk you when he was trying to charm you into our filthy ways?"

            "Will you stop pushing with that crap?"

            "I'm just asking you, big bro. Did he just plain stick his tongue down your throat to coax you over? You enough of a prude for that to be enough?"

            "Jesus christ, did he do that to you?” Nate snapped, looking up from the sleeve he’d been picking at, slamming his hands down on the bed.

            Davey sat up straighter, folding his legs together and leaning forward on his knees. "I just wanna know the whole story." he said slowly, words sliding off his tongue, syrupy through his simper.

            "He gave me information." Nate began again, taking a deep breath. His stalling was sincere against his brother's drawl. "Facts. Logistic, technical....statistical information. He told me about what the government's been doing, he mentioned....a couple things about the drugs. Not a lot on those. He said no one really knows the whole deal on those yet. But he was talking about all the corruption that had started in the past few years, and how...how they're out there fighting that."

            "He sucked you off."

            "Did I fucking say that? No, shithead. He told me to start thinking of a new name, that's what he did. And that's what I did. But I didn't do it so hard. I wasn't fucking sold, I was still half hearted through the whole thing. Despite everything he told me, I was still going to just ignore it. Pretend like it didn’t happen. Know that? But no, let me tell you. Then I went digging through your room a couple weeks later, and you know something, Davey? You know what?" Nate snapped, heaving and turning red with the tirade he was going off on. Davey didn't look phased.

"What?"

            "I was going to turn him in before I found that fucking bandana in your room. I was just going to forget the whole appeal of this....thing, to tell myself I was just misguided. To tell myself it was just their radical, dangerous propaganda, and I was the best exterminator, best investigator the city's ever seen by milking out all this info. They told me their fucking headquarters, for god's sake. I could've told that to the head guys. And then I could've turned all of those assholes in, cleaned out the outskirts of town of pollution in those people, get myself a real swell promotion and a few medals, but no. It turns out I wasn't being lied to, and my goddamn little brother really was in it the whole time.” Nate took a minute to stop, taking in a big, shaky gasp of air and shove a hand through his hair before continuing.

            “Do you know how fucking scary it was when I found out they were telling the truth? That they hadn't just been trying to bait me? That all of this, everything I had bought into and worked so hard for the past...however many fucking years...was just a sack of shit. So here you go, that’s your—that’s your sob story. Now I wanna leave. Okay? I'm being weeded out, I'm not exterminator quality. I don’t have it in me. And you know before all this, I was about to graduate early, too? They were ready to promote me and—“

            “I don’t care.” Davey interrupted, trying to look bored. His shoulders were clenched up too tight for his façade to work, though. Nate wasn’t paying attention anyway, continuing to rant.

            “But no, their...their propaganda or whatever, guess it fucking worked. Or maybe I'm just concerned about my little fucking brother. And yknow, it's a good thing you wanna leave. It's fucking swell. Good thing I figured all this out in time for me to tag along or whatever, or get my head screwed on straight in time to follow you before you just up and left. Good thing I got so fucking enlightened. I found your little notebook, you know. Your fucking road map." Nate said, finally looking at Davey again. His eyes were wide and red, and they looked like they were starting to get wet, too.

            "So?"

            "Is that all you have to fucking say? So? It's your escape route, asshole. I know what you're going to fucking do. Where you're gonna go."

            "No one said you had to come with me." Davey mumbled, looking down at the mattress.

            "Have you been listening to a word I've fucking said?” Nate asked, grabbing Davey by the shoulder. “The city would kill you if they found those plans. They'd execute you. And then they'd tank me, too. For not stopping you."

            "Oh well." Davey had redirected his eyes to a far corner of the room. Nate was huffing and panting after his great expulsion of thought, and he was shooting daggers at his brother.

            "Look at me."

            "What?" Davey snapped, glaring up at Nate. He didn't look so confident and cocky anymore. He just looked like he was putting up a big fat front.

            "I'm not letting you go out there alone."

            "I don't need you."

            "You wouldn't last five minutes in the desert without me."

            "I don't need you!" Davey barked at him.

            "Well maybe I fucking want to be there! Did you ever think about that?" Nate stood up, stamping on the trash covering the floor. "I don't want to stay in the city. I've been trying to beat that through your thick fucking skull for the past twenty minutes!"

            "What's wrong, you can't function without someone to fucking boss around?"

            "I'm responsible for you!"

            "Yeah, go ahead, go ahead and beat in how much of a fucking obligation I am! Like you haven’t done enough of that for my whole life already!"

            "Davey, Jesus fucking Christ, you're the most frustrating asshole I've ever fucking met." Nate snarled, picking up an empty soda can off of the floor and chucking it at the wall.

            "Then why can't you fuck off and let me go by myself? Huh? Then you'll finally be fucking done with me!"

            "Because I--! Look, look, just…listen. Because I want out, too. Davey. Listen. I'm done. I'm done here. Because wow, guess what. Maybe I finally fucking figured things out. Maybe I got my wake up call, too." Nate sighed, halfheartedly kicking at some dirty clothes on the ground.

             "Still doesn't make any sense." Davey said quietly.

            "It's my decision."

            "You're just going to give up your perfect fucking career? Your whole history of a perfect fucking life?"

            "Gonna do whatever I want." Nate replied shortly, swallowing and looking out of the small, dingy window in the room. Davey squinted at him, frowning.

            "This isn't just to run me out? To turn me in, to fuckin'....lure facts out of me?"

            "If I wanted that, I would've done it a long time ago."

            "I still don't trust you."

            "Davey. When have I ever double-crossed you?"

            Davey was silent, blinking angrily at Nate as his older brother stared past him, still staring out the window. Nate turned around, though, after Davey still didn't say anything.

            "Huh? You wanna tell me?"

            "Never." he mumbled, sighing and looking down at his hands.

            "Whenever you got into trouble, I always saved your ass, you know."

            "I don't need your fucking guilt trip."

            "I'm not guilt tripping you. I'm just saying."

            "Saying how much better than me you are." Davey grimaced.

            "But I never let them take you. And you know they almost did. Back right before you finished ninth grade, during your big bad incident." Nate sat down on the bed again, closer to his brother than he had before.

            "They weren't gonna take me anywhere."

            "You weren't there when I was talking to Mom and Dad about you." Nate said quietly.

            "What?"

            "They told me to go compromise on your behalf. To make a case for you, and I did. That's the only reason that they sent you to reform school instead of jail. I told them to give you another chance. I…that’s why…shit. Davey, I had two choices after school. They wanted me to go be a scientist, you know. That’s what my test scores really indicated I’d be good at. But I signed up for the military instead. It was a service exchange. For you."

            "You never told me that.” Davey grumbled, biting on his fingernails and glaring at his brother. It was a softer glare than before, though. He looked more like a wet cat than a rabid dog.

            "I’m telling you now.”

            “Well…thanks. I guess.”

            “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

            “Why’s that?”

             “Because.” Nate said, reaching into the other pocket of his vest, digging around in it. Davey stared at him until Nate's hand came out of the black fabric again, fingers clenched around a piece of white fabric. It would be inside of perfect city ideals, perfect regulations, if not for all the red spots covering it. They were done clumsily, imperfectly, and the staining was more reminiscent of hair dye than paint. But the spots were in red. And red was very, very distinctly against city standards.

            Ricky had told him that if he wanted to join up, he would have to trade out his white uniform for a different type of uniform. One that was dripping with color, dripping with everything the city had tried to wash out. Ricky explained it as “personality.” Nate had gone home and ripped apart one of his plain white shirts, taking it down to the bar the next day and having Ricky help him with the mutilation. It had been a nightmare to try and scrub the color stains off of his hands, but he’d managed.

            "You’re shitting me.” Davey said, dropping his hand from his mouth and gaping at Nate, speechless. Nate grinned at him, tying the edges of his bandana around his mouth and then covering his smile with spots. The cloth may have obscured his actual smile, but it covered it with another smile, smeared across wide and grinning in sky blue paint.

            "How's it look? Made it myself. It kinda matches yours, with the smile."

            "You're fuckin' serious."

            "I'm dead serious." Nate said. He tugged the bandana down to hang around his neck, the stained cloth standing out harshly against the perfect whites of his uniform. It was almost comical, an exterminator wearing the mark of the rebellion. While no one had the same bandana, certainly not, it could not be denied that the easiest way to pick out a bad egg was to pat them down and find a bandana. Nate had learned that fun fact in training. "Your map says you're leaving in three weeks. Three exactly."

            "Y-yeah."

            "Got room for me to tag along?"

            Davey didn't say anything, just frowned at Nate and chewed on his lip. "Give me my bandana."

            "I already did. You put it somewhere." Nate let out a small laugh at that. “God, you’re so hopeless.”

            "O-oh...shit." Davey fumbled around, reaching into the crack between his bed and the wall, and retrieved the fabric. He hastily tied it around his own neck, and tugged on it as soon as the knot was established, making sure it was steady. "So we're, we're gonna match?" He almost looked eager, desperate and wide eyed as he blinked up at Nate.

            "We're gonna match."

            "You're going with me for sure? A-and you fuckin' mean it? You're not shitting me?"

            "I'm not shitting you." Nate looked down, tugging the tip of his bandana, then smiled up at Davey.  “I think you and I have some fuckin' plans to collaborate on."

            "We gonna pack?"

            “Davey.”

            "What?"

            "Is there really anything from this shithole you wanna take with you?"

            Davey smirked at Nate, sitting up straight on the bed, swinging his legs over the edge, and knocking over a carton of cigarettes with his movement. He didn't notice, his boots hitting the floor with a thud.

            "Nothing but you."

            "Good. Because I'm not letting you leave me behind.”


End file.
